I'm pretty sure the order of events is as follows: my friend Aled leant me a copy of a Silver Mt. Zion album back when I lived in Cardiff - I think it was their first album, He Has Left Us Alone... - I wasn't that into it and found Efrim's voice a bit much. This was during a period where once a month we'd all lend each other a different album we thought the other person would like - it was interesting, although Aidan kept lending me 90's hip-hop and Hywel once tried to get me to listen to Johnny Marr. Aled, however, had a cracking cd collection and found some gems to introduce me to.
I pretty much didn't think about Silver Mt. Zion for the next four years, but in that time got into Godspeed properly. One afternoon whilst I was at my boring consultancy job I ended up trawling through the Constellation Record Soundcloud page and heard a bunch more Silver Mt. Zion songs (I can't remember how I ended up there, maybe from a Pitchfork article about another band on the label?). Anyway, that day I heard some songs I really liked (and still some where I found his voice really annoying).
Shortly afterwards two things happened: they announced they were releasing a new album and playing a London show. The show was in February and I decided it was worth going to check them out live; after all, I had heard some songs I really liked, plus I was (and am) a huge Godspeed fan so it felt like I should at least give Silver Mt. Zion a good chance. The album came out in January, but I didn't get it until March, and I'm pretty sure I'd heard nothing from the record ahead of the gig. I think I dragged Rich along, because Sarah had seen them before and wasn't a fan.
I was hugely impressed by the concert - it felt like a perfect cross between Godspeed-style post-rock and and a punk-rock show, in as much as the songs were only 10 minutes long, rather than half an hour a piece. It was in Koko in north London, a venue I'm not a great fan of - you have to get quite far forward to not feel like the roof of the balcony isn't right over your head. The advantage, then, was that I was very far forward and surrounded by the excellent noise they were making.
A particular highlight that night was a new song, and a large factor in me deciding to buy this record: What We Loved Was Not Enough. As you'd expect for a post-rock song, it builds in a wonderful way - the drums quickly indicate the beginning of things and the strings kick in, the melody is lovely and it just keeps coming at you. Eventually it gives way to "And the day has come when we no longer feel" on repeat countlessly whilst an almost-spoken-word verse plays out, itself building beautifully (and bleakly - "All our children going to die"). It's definitely the highlight of the record for me and a large part in me declaring Fuck Off Get Free We Pour Light on Everything as my album of the year in 2014 (it beat Shellac, Electric Wizard, Restorations and Run the Jewels, all incredible albums that I still love now - it was a strong year). I remember being wowed by that song live and on the record.
The rest of the record is great too. Side A comprises two songs - Fuck Off Get Free and Austerity Blues - totalling 25 minutes of music, the latter with the excellent outro of "Lord let my son live long enough to see that mountain torn down" and the discordant music that accompanies it. One of the most interesting things about the album is the way that the vocals add so, so much, particularly due to the fact that "everybody sang" (as is written in the liner notes), meaning you have these layered vocals (and reducing how cutting Efrim's voice can sometimes be). It makes you wonder what other post-rock nands might do with vocals in a non-traditional sense. The twin violins mean that the album is heavy on strings (a big plus) and they can experiment with one playing something nice whilst the other builds tension and discordance. The drumming is also excellent. The two short songs don't feel like filler, which is nice - they're complete songs, but of a different style so don't need 10-minutes-plus to do what they're doing.
I can't recommend this album to many people - there's a lot of things her that a lot of people would hate (and often all at the same time), but it just happens that all those things are things I love (especially at the same time) so it is a huge winner for me. I fully stand by my choice of calling it album of the year in 2014.
Format: 12", picture sleeve, insert, poster
Tracks: 6
Cost: £10 new
Bought: Banquet Records, Kingston
When: 22/03/14
Colour: Black
Etching: none
mp3s: download code
